The invention is directed to a new three-dimensional graphical user interface for querying and manipulating a relational database management system for order-entry applications, more generally referred to herein as a furniture specification system, which allows a user to specify furniture products for a project and to generate a quotation or purchase order for the project and which displays the furniture which makes up the order or quotation.
The process of specifying furniture for large-scale projects, such as the furniture required for an entire floor or several floors of an office building, is extremely complicated and time-consuming. Traditionally, this process has required the assistance of highly trained individuals who must be knowledgeable about the numerous furniture products which are available, as described in voluminous furniture catalogs. Such catalogs, when stacked together, may exceed ten feet in thickness. The initial training period for such an individual may be on the order of several months, and the fact that the voluminous catalogs are periodically updated, such as every three months, essentially mandates that the training is never-ending. Mistakes in the furniture specification process can occur for a variety of reasons, including lack of familiarity with the furniture catalogs and use of outdated catalogs.
One conventional way of specifying a furniture project is to utilize a CAD system to generate the desired furniture layout and a separate specifier program to input the specifics needed to generate a purchase order. The process of creating the furniture layout typically takes months. After that period of time, when most of the desired furniture layout is determined, the list of furniture products in the furniture layout is moved to the specifier to add the information required for a purchase order. The process of creating the specification typically takes months also.
However, changes in the furniture layout are typically continually made by the customer, thus resulting in the need to simultaneously modify the data in both the CAD system and the specifier system. Due to the large number of changes that are typically made, and the need to manually update both the CAD system and the specifier system, errors are inevitably made, resulting in the furniture layout data in the CAD system being inconsistent with the data in the specifier system. Even if such inconsistencies are discovered, it may be difficult to determine which of the two systems accurately reflects the desired furniture layout.
Various systems for automating the specification of products have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,392 to Malin discloses a design system for creating furniture layouts. U.S. Pat. No. 5,255,207 to Cornwell discloses a method for designing and detailing cabinets. U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,479 to Quintero, et al. discloses a design tool which may be used to specify furniture projects.